48. Friend
48. Friend
Sounds are heard from beyond the wall. From the cheerful classic music with a soft melody blessing the party, to the sound of wine-swishing glass cups clinking, and the superficial conversations of the guests in the banquet hall, all kinds of sounds mix and mingle, eventually crushing together at the edge of the ear.
I raise my head and look into the mirror. A girl adorned with a pure white luxury wedding dress and all sorts of beautiful jewels is crying. Ah, I shouldn't be like this. I forcibly raise the corners of my lips. The girl reflected in the mirror smiles. It was beautiful.
Sitting alone in an empty room on a chair, memories of the past suddenly came to mind. A sunny summer, the front yard of our house. Grandfather is watering the flowerbed, and Father is walking around the garden with me riding on his shoulders. Where did Mother go? Ah, she must be cooking. Around the time we were strolling around the garden with Father and making idle chatter, a voice was heard from far away. It's time to eat —
"You are scheduled to enter the wedding hall in 5 minutes, agassi."
At the blunt voice that felt as if it made my heart drop with a kung, I wake up from the dream. This place is a wedding hall. And I am a tribute to be offered to the second son of the Hedeltz Family for the sake of the family. Reminding myself of my situation once more, I said,
"...Understood."
5 minutes left until the wedding ceremony takes place. Only 5 minutes remain until I am offered as a tribute simply to satisfy the sexual desires of a prominent ducal family, having even the last shred of freedom remaining in my daily life stripped away. It's like a pig right before being slaughtered in a slaughterhouse. There's no leash, but it's hard to breathe, and my whole body is shaking.
I raise my head and look into the mirror. The girl is crying. I painstakingly try to raise the corners of my lips. The girl is crying. I try to move the corners of my lips. The girl is crying. Raise the corners of your lips. The girl smiles. That's it.
The banquet hall is still noisy. Music played steeply as if varied in the meantime and the laughter of the guests mix in. What's so fun for them that they're smiling so happily? I'm going crazy wanting to know the reason.
I look into the mirror. The girl who was once beautiful is now wearing a bizarrely twisted smile, and her fingernails painted with white nail art have turned red. My breathing grows heavy, and a feeling of nausea rises. I had to escape again. I painstakingly tried to recall memories of the past. Instead of memories that have worn out and become blurry, I recalled memories of the relatively near past.
Yesterday evening, I met Yuriel. At the words to meet at Seolhwa Central Lake at 7 PM, I initially hesitated because of curfew, but if I rejected her request like this, my future self would regret it so much. And thinking that everything would be over by tomorrow anyway, my steps became much lighter.
Thus, I managed to break through the family's surveillance and meet Yuriel at Seolhwa Central Lake. To me, who was making a complicated expression wrapped in an indescribable emotion at the fact that this was one of the few freedoms I carved out with my own hands and at the same time the last freedom given to me, Yuriel flashed a bright smile and soon opened her mouth.
'Shall we walk for now?'
Her suggestion had nothing special about it. I accepted it, and we walked together. To someone else, it might just be one of countless nights, but to me, who had to be confined inside the house whenever the moon rose for a long time, the atmosphere given by the festival night was so extremely special.
We walked the streets together, experienced the Seolhwa Festival to our heart's content, appreciated busking performances with students on the street, and laughed joyfully.
Around the time when I was unknowingly excited by the festive atmosphere, Yuriel said,
'...If you have anything hard going on, tell me. We're friends, after all. Got it?'
At Yuriel's appearance of calmly speaking to me as if brushing it off, yet with a tone somehow filled with certainty, I just smiled and answered that I understood.
Words like that, which Yuriel casually tosses out every once in a while, often make me feel as if she's seeing right through my inner thoughts.
Why on earth did Yuriel say something like that back then? Was it just a hunch, or did she really say that because she knew my situation? I have no clue at all. It might have just been a remark tossed out without much thought.
Well, thinking about it now is all a story of the past. I ultimately failed to confess my situation to Yuriel, and failed to ask for help. With my own hands, I threw away even the single tiny possibility that could have made me happy. Yuriel reached out her hand to me, but I couldn't take it. Everything is something I brought upon myself. If I do this, what will happen to the family? She might suffer harm because of me. Self-rationalizing in that manner, I refused to ask Yuriel for help.
Ultimately, this is the future I chose, and the responsibility I have to bear is also my share. It was a natural logic.
When I close my eyes, that day comes to mind.
Early evening with red sunset light casting over. The rabbit breeding pen inside the backyard of Seowol Academy.
As usual, I went to the breeding pen to feed the rabbits in the pen, and met Yuriel there.
My first meeting with her, who was clumsier than anyone else to the extent that one could tell at a glance it was her first time, yet treated them sweeter and more cautiously than anyone else because of that.
I know that that was one of the few miraculous pieces of good luck for me.
The days of giggling kikik in the backyard with Yuriel, whose fingertips were bitten while trying to give a carrot to a rabbit. The awkward yet enjoyable first exploration of downtown experienced with Yuriel. The refreshing night air felt while walking through the academy with a heart excited, drunk on the festival atmosphere...
Someday, as time passes, if I, having grown accustomed to living as a plaything of the man who will become my husband in the distant future, suddenly look back on the past days spent with Yuriel which have now become blurry, what would I be thinking at that time? And what would Yuriel be doing at that time? I'm curious.
Yuriel is a tremendously talented student, so if she dreams of becoming the Empire's Knight Commander, she'll be called the strongest Knight Commander in the history of the Empire, and if she dreams of becoming the Magic Tower Master, she'll become the youngest Magic Tower Master who will bring innovation to existing magic circuits. If she wants to become an academy professor... well, that might be a bit difficult. Because a genius doesn't understand the hardships of ordinary people.
And probably by around that time, an enormous number of capable people will surely gather around Yuriel. I guarantee it. Because it's only natural for many people to gather around a capable and kind human being.
When people gather and gather until there's no space left to set foot around Yuriel, I hope a spot of mine remains in a corner of Yuriel's heart.
Even now she is an amazing person, but I hope that to Yuriel, who will become a much more amazing person than that in the future, my weak and wretched self will remain as one of the joyful memories of our school days.
I hope that she alone will remember my appearance in childhood walking down the path with Yuriel and wearing a happy smile.
I prayed.
After doing that, my heavy heart felt like it had become slightly refreshed. Feeling the sensation of my body becoming much lighter, I looked into the mirror again.
The girl reflected in the mirror was crying.
Ah, I'm sorry. I lied. It's all a lie. Inside my body, a much more sticky feeling of nausea than ever before surges up, and the inside of my heart feels like it's rotting away.
Actually, actually, I wanted you to save me.
I wanted you to rescue me, who am living a life where every single day is like hell, like a puppet without an ounce of my own volition in life.
I wanted you to reach out your hand to me, who was right on the verge of falling into a pitch-black abyss where no hope can be seen anymore.
I want to be by Yuriel's side. Not simply as a remnant of past memories, but I want to be together in Yuriel's brilliantly shining future.
I want to walk together with Yuriel. Walking down the path, appreciating the fireworks which are the climax of the festival, I want to welcome the end of the festival.
I want to laugh together with Yuriel. I want to tease Yuriel endlessly as she gets her hand bitten by a rabbit, bumps her butt with a kong, and makes excuses that aren't really excuses.
I want to cry together with Yuriel. I want to confess secrets I couldn't spill to anyone else, and cry shedding tears floods that I've never shown to anyone.
That in fact, 5 minutes from now, I'm being sold off as a plaything to satisfy the sexual desires of a middle-aged pot-bellied mister.
That I'm so terrified and want to run away, but I can't run away because the family becomes endangered if I do.
That's why I'm going crazy because it's so, so hard... asking if you could possibly help me. Asking if you could reach out your hand.
......I wanted to say it.
"......H-Heueuk, heueueuk......."
Tears well up in my eyes. My vision blurs, and my throat keeps choking up. My breathing grows rapid, and my lips tremble.
"Yu, Yuriel......, I miss yooou....... Heu, heueuk......"
The sincere feelings that will no longer reach her repeatedly fail to even become sentences and scatter in empty space.
"Heu, heu......, W-What do I do now? I'm so scared..., help me......, heu, heueu, heueong......"
With tears continuously flowing without stopping no matter how much I wipe them, I buried my head low to painstakingly stop the tears, and spent quite a while making the tears stop.
After a few minutes, no, tens of minutes passed.
"......B-But earlier the mister said he'd call me in 5 minutes......?"
Realizing that an irreversible amount of time had already passed, just as I hurriedly raised my head that I had buried low, wondering what to do, and was painstakingly wiping my vision blurred and stained with tears,
"Geez, how many minutes are you going to cry for, I've been waiting for ages."
A voice that was extremely familiar, yet longing, reached my ears.
"...W-What?"
"Good job, Seolhwa-ya."
Long-flowing hair with a careful pale pink tinge on shimmering silver hair, and blue eyes radiating a azure light as if sapphires had been melted down.
"...R-Really Yuriel......?"
"Yeah, it's really Yuriel. The strongest talent in the history of the Empire to appear once in a millennium, the Miracle of Elysia, and ——
—— Seolhwa's friend."
Yuriel was standing right in front of me.
- And —— Seolhwa's friend.
Yuriel's appearance, being recorded in real-time through the micro-surveillance device, is captured on the screen and reflected in Siwoo's eyes. Following that, Hong Seolhwa's scumbag-like weeping sound and the appearance of the excessively kind Yuriel comforting her are captured on the screen.
- Heueuk, I'm so haaard...... Yurieeel......, heueooong.......
- Yeah, you can cry all you want. Because it's all resolved now.
"......Hm."
Who on earth is she crying to?
Inside the wedding hall that was half-blown up and collapsing due to Yuriel's rampage, Siwoo sat alone astride a table, not even bothering to glance at the guests evacuating in a hurry, and gazed intently only at the tiny screen.
The tiny screen floating in mid-air reflected Siwoo's appearance wearing a somewhat twisted smile.